Mercat Tours - Hidden and Haunted

Being such an historical city with such a bloody past, it is no wonder that one of the most popular things to do when in Edinburgh, is to take a ghost walk in the evening. In fact, walking up the Royal Mile during the day, there are loads of promotional boards all offerring something unique and historical. It can sometimes be hard to choose between the good and the imitators. Having already experienced the comical and scary Cadies & Witchery Tour and the terrifying City of the Dead on our last visit, we decided to see what Mercat Tours could offer with their "adults only" Hidden and Haunted tour.

Setting off at 9pm in the summer (when it was still light) was not the most foreboding of starts but soon our guide, Gerard, started to regale us with exciting and gruesome stories from times long gone. Cleverly, he would pull people out of the tour party and get them to act out the stories of murder and bloodshed he was telling. The stories were engaging and interesting enough but in the light summers night, we were having trouble seeing why this was scary tour. Then after half an hour or so we were led to an innocent looking shop front that hid a dark deep secret:

You see behind this shop front were steps down into the dark and foreboding Blair Street underground Vaults. And at the bottom of the steps? A warren of small narrow tunnels lit only by flickering candles that left a lot of darkness and shadows lurking at the corners of the room.

The stories and tales we were told downstairs turned to much darker subjects with accounts of demons, dead children and ghosts (both benign and malevolent) in every room. The atmosphere was a perfect for this type of storytelling and as the candles flickered via unexplainable air movements - it was very easy to imagine that these undead spirits were in the room with us. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your stance!) Nothing appeared to us and all too soon, we were led to the illuminated safety of the Caverns gift shop!

Ghost tours rely solely on the believability and story telling power of the tour guide. Get a poor guide and however creepy the venue may be the whole tour can be ruined. So we were happy to see how lively and involved Gerard was at all times - happily stopping to answer questions and help out while providing the right level of menace and humour! If all their guides are as good as him then you can be guaranteed of a good time whichever tour you take.Mercat Tours have been running walks around Edinburgh for a number of years and are the only tour to have exclusive access to the Blair St Underground Vaults. Tours run nightly and can be booked in advance.For more information check out their websitewww.mercattours.com

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